There was, next morning, a little dialogue much like that which I had overheard the day before, except that this time it was "stewed rose-leaves with a small pot of sunshine," which Miss Fielding was fanciful enough to demand. I wondered what, after such a pleasantry, she did have; for I took it to be some joke between her and Leah, who, no doubt, translated the metaphor into something more substantial.
As I ate breakfast, I could hear Miss Fielding singing in her room. She came in before I had finished my egg and coffee, bringing an armful of new magazines. This time she was dressed in pongee and wore a short string of graduated white coral beads which was mimicked, when she smiled, by her little teeth.
"I've found out about you—quite by accident, though, Mr. Castle, really," she said gaily; and, opening one of the magazines, she tapped with her hand the picture of a country house my firm had just rather successfully completed. "So you're an architect! And I'm the first to get off the island, after all!"
"It doesn't matter, I suppose, so long as I stay on?" I asked.
"Oh, this doesn't by any means absolve you of your promise," she answered, examining the illustration carefully, still standing at the foot of the bed.
"You aren't really very much wiser, are you? There are architects and architects, you know."
"Yes," she said, apparently thinking of something else. "Quite as there are women and women," she added, turning over the pages idly.
"There's only one of your sort!" I exclaimed.
A queer smile passed and was repressed upon her lips, molding them into new curves. "Yes, only one of me."
"I don't exactly mean that, either," I went on. "The fact is, rather, that there is more than one of me. There's the architect and the man in me—and how many more! One is always astonishing the others. Aren't there, after all, several of you, Miss Fielding?"